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He knew she was probably right about the intruder Most likely, it had been Jasper, chasing a cat or looking for an Oreo handout The thing he’d thought he had seen--the slightly twisted,reflected in her eyes, her e--had surely been a trick of light and shadow Still, the incident left hi he’d had just before he’d looked out the
Grace Mitowski filled the yellow plastic boith Meow Mix and put it in the corner by the kitchen door
"Kitty-kitty-kitty"
Aristophanes didn’t respond
The kitchen wasn’t Ari’s favorite place in the house, for it was the only room in which he was not permitted to climb wherever he wished He wasn’t actually much of a climber anyway He lacked the spirit of adventure that many cats had, and he usually stayed on the floor However, even though he had no burning desire to sca him he couldn’t do it
Like most cats, he resisted discipline and despised all rules Nevertheless, as little as he liked the kitchen, he never failed to put in an appearance atimpatiently by his bohen Grace came to fill it
She raised her voice "Kitty-kitty-kitty"
There was no answering , his tail curled up slightly, eager for his dinner
"Ari-Ari-Ari! Soup’s on, you silly cat"
She put away the box of cat food and washed her hands at the sink
Thunk, thunk-thunk!
The ha sound--one hard blow followed by two equally hard blows struck close together--was
so sudden and loud that Grace jerked in surprise and al her hands The noise had come from the front of the house She waited arain, and then-- Thunk! Thunk!
She hung the towel on the rack and stepped into the downstairs hallway
Thunk-thunk-thunk!
She walked hesitantly down the hail to the front door and snapped on the porch light The door had a peephole, and the fish-eye lens provided a wide view She couldn’t see anyone; the porch appeared to be deserted
THUNK!
That bloas delivered with such force that Grace thought the door had been torn fro sound as she ju into the hall But the door still hung firh it vibrated noisily in its fraainst the lock plate
THUNK! THUNK! THUNK!
"Stop that!" she shouted "Who are you? Who’s there?"
The pounding stopped, and she thought she heard
adolescent laughter
She had been on the verge of either calling the police or going for the pistol she kept in her nightstand, but when she heard the laughter, she changed her mind She could certainly handle a few kids without help She wasn’t so old and weak and fragile that she needed to call the cops to deal with a bunch of ornery little pranksters
Cautiously, she drew aside the curtain on the long, narro beside the door Tense, ready to step away quickly if solass, she looked out There was no one on the porch
She heard the laughter again It was high-pitched,the curtain fall back into place, she turned to the door, unlocked it, and stepped onto the threshold
The night as raw and wet Rain drizzled off the scalloped eaves of the porch
The immediate area in front of the house offered at least a hundred hiding places for the hoaxers Bristling shrubbery rustled in the wind, just the other side of the railing, and the yellowish glow fro illuminated little more than the center of the porch The ay that led from the bottoes that looked blue black in the darkness Aht, none of the pranksters were visible
Grace waited, listened
Thunder ru in the darkness
--Maybe it wasn’t kids
--Who else?
--You see them on TV news all the tile people for the fun of it They seem to be everywhere these days, the hter This is kids’ work
--Still,like a frightened old lady, dahborhood children would harass her, for she was on excellent terms with all of thehborhood Just a couple of streets away, everyone was a stranger to her